


Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

by walkingmusical



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, F/F, Family, Fluff, Letters to Santa, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28425207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingmusical/pseuds/walkingmusical
Summary: Cheryl is upset with Toni for telling the twins about Santa, but is willing to let her give them a magical Christmas. She just has to do it on her own.--Written for Riverdale Holiday Bingo 2020 - SF: Letters to Santa
Relationships: Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51
Collections: Riverdale Holiday Bingo 2020





	Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Toni let out a content hum when Cheryl’s lips pressed against the top of her head, before shifting herself so she could rest her ear against her wife’s chest and listen to her heartbeat. There was nothing more relaxing that spending the evening huddled up to the redhead on the sofa, next to a roaring fire.

“Aunt Cheryl!” Dagwood screamed from the hallway.

“We’re in the living room.” Cheryl called out, tightening her grip around Toni’s waist. The knowledge that her wife didn’t want to get up to deal with whatever mess the twins got themselves into, and to instead remain in this embrace, caused a smile to form on the Serpent’s face.

Dagwood bolted into the living room and directly made his way into Toni’s line of vision.

“Juniper said that I’m on Santa’s naughty list!” Dagwood sulked.

“Santa’s naughty list?” Cheryl questioned.

Reluctantly, Toni pulled herself away from Cheryl’s embrace and sat herself down on the edge of the sofa. Dagwood may have come crying to Cheryl, but her maternal instincts always seemed to take over when it came to the twins.

“Oh no.” Toni responded, her expression falling. “Why did she say that?”

Before Dagwood could answer, his twin sister appeared at the doorway with tears in her eyes. It became clear to Toni that the twins had gotten into some kind of fight. Juniper and Dagwood got on like a house on fire, and these antics were quite common.

“He hit me.” Juniper wailed.

Toni held her arms out to the little girl, who instantly rushed over to the Serpent and sat herself down on her lap.

“That wasn’t very nice.” Toni cooed, giving the redhead child a gentle hug. “Did he hurt you?”

Juniper nodded her head.

“On my shoulder.” She declared. “I think he broke it.”

Toni couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle at her niece’s claim.

“I don’t think he broke it.” Toni assured her, before turning her attention to Dagwood. “But you should say sorry to your sister if you want to get back on Santa’s nice list.”

“Sorry.” Dagwood sighed.

“You told them about Santa?” Cheryl snapped, sitting up from the sofa, as the realisation hit her.

Whenever Cheryl got mad about something, it always seemed to surprise Toni. After many years together, the Serpent should know that the weirdest things bothered the redhead, but it was always so hard to pinpoint what those things were.

“Yeah.” Toni said, giving her wife a confused look. “Is that a problem?”

“Yes.” Cheryl responded, before turning her attention to the kids. “Santa isn’t real. He’s just a story Aunt Toni made up, now go and play.”

The disappointed looks that fell on the twins’ faces absolutely broke Toni’s heart. Especially when Juniper simply crawled off her lap and left the living room with her brother. They were only kids, and they deserved a little bit of magic in their lives.

“Cheryl!” Toni snapped, turning her attention to her wife. “Why would you tell them that?”

Cheryl seemed absolutely unbothered by the situation that just occurred, and that only made Toni more annoyed.

“Because he’s not.” Cheryl said bluntly. “And I don’t want to use stories to threaten the twins into behaving. That’s exactly what my hag of a mother did to me.”

Toni should have known that this all tied back to Penelope, somehow. She knew that Cheryl was often told scary stories about the ‘Sugarman’, as a kid, but Santa had nothing to do with the drug lord that her parents worked with.

“It’s not a way to threaten them, babe.” Toni softly explained, reaching her hand out to squeeze Cheryl’s shoulder. “It’s just something to make Christmas more exciting for them. Didn’t your mom ever tell you about Santa?”

She knew that Penelope was an abusive mother but going all out and giving her kids everything they wanted for Christmas would have been an effortless ordeal with all the wealth she hoarded. Surely Cheryl grew up with the magic of Santa, at the very least.

“She did.” Cheryl said, coldly. “And she told me about his dark elf, too.”

Santa’s dark elf? That sounded worse than the Sugarman. Penelope truly disgusted Toni, and she was so happy that Cheryl managed to escape her abuse.

“She told me that if I was good, Santa would come on Christmas Eve and bring me presents.” Cheryl explained, which prompted Toni to give her wife a single head nod. That seemed normal enough, most children were told the exact same thing. “But if I was naughty, his dark elf would come and devour me, instead.”

There it was: another emotional scar that Penelope Blossom had left on Cheryl.

“Cheryl, I didn’t tell them about the dark elf.” Toni assured her wife. “Just that Santa would bring them presents if they were good.”

The red head rose from the sofa and made her way to the living room door, turning her attention to Toni, for a moment.

“Fine, if you want to tell them about Santa, do it.” Cheryl yielded. “But you’re doing this on your own, I want no part in it.”

Was that Cheryl’s blessing? This was absolutely a compromise that Toni could accept. She turned to ask her wife, but she was gone before the words could pass her lips.

***

Cheryl later confirmed that Toni did have her blessing to tell the twins stories about Santa, so the next hurdle to jump over was getting them to believe again; and she had the perfect idea.

“Hey, pumpkins.” Toni said to the twins, playfully, as she entered their playroom. “What are you doing?”

Juniper and Dagwood were seated on the colouring table, with an array of crayons covering it. Toni approached them and glanced over at their work.

“I’m colouring a Princess.” Juniper informed Toni. “And Dagwood is colouring a car.”

Both colouring sheets looked like an absolute mess to Toni, but she gave the kids a grin before ruffling their orange hair.

“Masterpieces!” Toni praised, as she kneeled herself down to their level. “But I have something for you both to do, which is _way_ more important.”

The twins glanced at each other, before giving their aunt a confused look. Toni simply reached for two blank pieces of paper and placed them over the kid’s colouring sheets.

“I need you both to write a letter to Santa telling him what you want for Christmas.” She said, softly. “That way, he will know what to bring you.”

“But Aunt Cheryl said that Santa isn’t real!” Juniper protested.

Toni knew that there would be some reluctance when she decided to go down this route, so she spent a lot of time thinking of ways to tell them that Cheryl was wrong without leading them to distrust her. She knew how fickle kids could be.

“Aunt Cheryl got Santa mixed up with Zeus.” Toni said, unsure on how believable that would be. “Because they both have white beards.”

Thankfully, she was talking to literal children, who didn’t have any critical thinking skills whatsoever.

“Oh.” Juniper responded. “Zeus definitely isn’t real.”

“No, he’s not.” Toni agreed. “But Santa is, and if you write him a letter and leave it on the fireplace, you’ll see.”

The Serpent then rose from the floor and made her way out of the playroom, hoping that she had done enough to reinstate the kids’ faith in Santa.

***

That night, Toni creeped down to the living room and was thrilled to see two notes, handwritten in crayon, resting by the fireplace. She took both of them from the floor and made her way over to the sofa to read them, opening up Juniper’s first.

_Dear Santa,_

_I really want a doll house for Christmas._

_From,_

_Juniper._

Toni’s felt her heart drop. She really hoped that the twins would ask for something inexpensive, though she realised now that it wasn’t the most realistic thing to hope for. Without Cheryl’s support, she really had to set a budget on the presents they were going to get from Santa. Maybe she could ask Archie to make a dolls house? It would be cheaper than buying one.

She opened Dagwood’s, next.

_Dear Santa,_

_Can I have a motorbike? I want to be cool, like my Aunt Toni._

_From,_

_Dagwood._

While Toni was touched by her nephew’s sentiments, there was no way in hell that he was getting his own motorbike. Maybe she could give him a ride on hers, though?

She felt her heart sinking, again. There was no way that Dagwood would be content with one motorbike ride, and Juniper was not going to be happy with a handmade doll house. Unless she could think fast, the twins were going to lose faith in Santa come Christmas morning.

“What’s the matter, TT?” Cheryl asked, from the living room door. “I woke up and you weren’t in bed.”

Toni turned her attention to Cheryl and gave her a half-smile.

“I was just reading the twins’ letters to Santa.” She explained.

Cheryl sat herself down next to Toni and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a gentle embrace. Even though the two disagreed on this specific aspect on parenting, Toni took comfort in knowing that her wife would always offer her emotional support.

“Dagwood wants a _motorbike_?” A shocked Cheryl exclaimed, as she looked over to her nephew’s letter.

“Yeah, and Juniper wants a doll house.” Toni said, holding back a chortle. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get one that she would like, though.”

Toni shuffled closer to Cheryl and pondered for a moment.

“I guess you’re going to get what you want, after all.” She murmured. “Unless I can think of something before Christmas Eve, the kids aren’t going to believe in Santa, anymore.”

“Why is this so important to you, TT?” Cheryl asked, moving her hand up and down Toni’s arm. “Plenty of children grow up not believing in Santa and turn out just fine.”

Letting out a sigh, Toni rested her head on her wife’s shoulder, allowing herself to be comforted by her touch.

“Yeah, including me.” She revealed once she cozied up to Cheryl. “We were so poor. My parents tried to work extra hours to get me Christmas presents every year, but they couldn’t always pull it off. So, they decided not to tell me about Santa. That way, I wouldn’t be disappointed or think that I was being naughty.”

A content hum escaped Toni’s lips as Cheryl nuzzled the top of her head.

“I didn’t get the excitement on Christmas Eve of knowing that Santa was coming.” Toni explained.

“So, you wanted to make sure the twins had it?” Cheryl asked, prompting Toni to nod her head.

The more Toni thought about her childhood, the more she realised that her parents made the decision they did purely out of love. Even though her family eventually imploded, and she had to move in with her uncle, she didn’t grow up doubting that she was loved by her parents. Of course, her uncle was a completely different story, but that was a different thing to unpack, entirely. Maybe Chery’s position also came from a place of love.

“Cheryl, did the whole naughty and nice list make you uncomfortable?” Toni asked, gently.

Silence hung in the air for a moment, and Toni found herself wondering if this was something that Cheryl even wanted to talk about.

“Yes.” Cheryl finally answered. “I know it’s not the same as the dark elf, but the idea of no presents still feels like a threat.”

“We could take the naughty and nice list out of the equation entirely.” Toni offered. “Tell them that they’ll get presents every year, no matter what.”

Although Toni couldn’t see Cheryl’s face entirely, she could swear that a smile formed on her lips.

“I like that idea.” Cheryl mused. “And now we know exactly what to get the twins for Christmas.”

“We’re not getting Dagwood a motorbike.” Toni chortled.

“We’ll get him a toy one, that runs on batteries.” Cheryl explained, a chortle also in her tone. “And he can ride around out back with his cool Aunt Toni.”

Toni lifted herself up to her knees and turned to face Cheryl, placing a hand on her cheek before pressing a kiss against her lips. The redhead eagerly returned the kiss, before resting her nose against the Serpent’s.

“They’re going to have the best Christmas.” Toni mused, before placing another kiss on Cheryl’s lips.

“They really are.” Cheryl mumbled into the kiss.

***

Much to the joy of both Cheryl and Toni, the twins had the best Christmas money could buy them. Cheryl managed to find a craftsman who could make Juniper an exact replica of Thistle House, which she was absolutely thrilled with. Dagwood was also thrilled with his toy motorbike, which he was eager to take out back and play with.

“I told you I’d be on Santa’s nice list!” Dagwood sneered to his sister. “I only hit _you_ because you’re annoying.”

“Dagwood!” Cheryl snapped. “Don’t talk to your sister like that.”

Toni glanced over to Cheryl, who rolled her eyes at her nephew’s behaviour, before turning her attention back to Dagwood.

“You know, I’ve been talking to the elves and they told me a secret.” She said, just above a whisper. “Santa doesn’t have a naughty or nice list, that’s just made up.”

She caught Cheryl smiling in the corner of her eye and was so glad that they reached a compromise that her wife was actually comfortable with.

“So, we get presents every year, no matter what?” Dagwood asked.

“No matter what.” Toni confirmed. “You still shouldn’t hit your sister, though. It’s not nice.”

“But there’s no nice list.” Dagwood protested, before making his way out of the living room.

Toni and Cheryl glanced to each other, both unamused by his comment and a little concerned.

“We’ll get the message through to him some other way.” Cheryl promised, before kneeling off the armchair to play dolls with her niece.

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr: [walkingmusical](https://walkingmusical.tumblr.com/).  
> Riverdale Bingo: [riverdalebingo](https://riverdalebingo.tumblr.com/).


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